"I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom let me end my life free when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any regime except the regime of liberty"

- Gustave Courbet - Realism Movement 1819 - 1877

About Gustave Courbet: The French Artist, Gustave Courbet was born in Ornans (Doubs), into a prosperous farming family which wanted him to study law, he went to Paris in 1839, and worked at the studio of Steuben and Hesse. An independent spirit, he soon left, preferring to develop his own style by studying Spanish, Flemish and French painters and painting copies of their work. An exhibition of Gustave Courbet Paintings was held in 1882 at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.